The present invention relates to manufacturing or preparing pizza. Pizza dough typically consists of flour, sugar, yeast, salt, water, and/or oil, among various other ingredients that may be used to obtain desired characteristics. Pizza dough may be formed into a desired shape to form a pizza crust before being topped with other ingredients and baked. Notably, the term “crust” as used herein generally refers to the dough-based, breaded portion of a pizza and may refer to the baked or raw bottom of a pizza, rim of a pizza, or both.
There are various styles of pizzas, pizza doughs, and pizza crusts, each having characteristics which may be associated with certain geographic regions, cultures, traditions, etc. For example, common pizza styles include but are not limited to: Neapolitan, deep-dish, Chicago, New York, New England Greek, grilled, stuffed, cast iron, flatbread, cracker, St. Louis, Romana, Sicilian, Detroit, etc. Each style of pizza may be associated with one or more methods or procedures for preparing a crust consistent with the style. Doughs may be prepared with various moisture contents which yields a desired crust depending on the type of pizza being prepared. There are many known methods for shaping pizza dough prior to cooking. For example, pizza dough may be hand-tossed (i.e., manually spun in the air), hand-formed (e.g., shaped manually with a user's hands or tools), hand-stretched, rolled (e.g., with a rolling pin), sheeted (e.g., processed through a sheeter), pressed (e.g., manually or automatically smashed by a press, either unrestricted laterally or in a mold), etc.
Hand-prepared and hand-stretched crust may yield the a very desirable baked crust consistency. This is due to the reduced degassing of the dough when hand-stretching as opposed to pressing and rolling with a machine, kitchen tools, and the like. After dough is prepared, it is “proofed” which allows the yeast in the dough to ferment. This may also be referred to as allowing the dough to “rise.” The yeast in the dough produces carbon dioxide bubbles within the dough which can lead to a lighter, fluffier crust when baked. However, when a machine or roller is used to flatten the dough into a pizza or crust form, the pressure of the rolling pin or press surface can lead to degassing of these air bubbles (which are primarily carbon dioxide), and the final product will be denser, crumby, with a uniform texture which may take on a more cracker-like consistency or texture. When hand-preparing and hand-stretching dough, however, the bubbles resulting from the fermentation and proofing process are retained in the dough, which when baked will lead to a fluffier, lighter, and softer dough.
However, hand-stretching dough is a skill which is learned and honed over time, and hand-stretching dough from a dough ball to a formed pizza crust often leads to sections in the dough which are very thin and prone to tearing. This can require starting the forming process over with a new dough ball, leading to additional time and costs. When preparing many pizza crusts for a restaurant and/or mass-production, it is important to be able to form many pizza crusts in a short period of time to reduce wait time, improve consistency, and maximize customer satisfaction.
A problem with many, if not all, of the above-mentioned methods and procedures is that they tend to yield a central portion of a base portion of a pizza crust which is undesirably thin, thereby leading to breaking and tearing of the dough during preparation. Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for forming pizza dough into a shape that has a central portion which resists unwanted breaking and tearing, and ensures consistent pizza crust formation ready for hand-stretching even by novice users.